


Abyss

by Lise



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Clint doesn't need more Loki in his life, Clint needs a therapist or maybe four, Dark, Gen, M/M, Memory Alteration, Psychological Trauma, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con References, except it's a little more complicated than that, follow ups to fics the author never meant to write in the first place, seriously creepy relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 17:40:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something weird in Clint's head. He could just be being paranoid; after all, he hasn't been normal since...everything. Or else he could be right that something's wrong. </p>
<p>Something's very wrong. (Follow-up to "Monstrosity".)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abyss

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Monstrosity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/827045) by [Lise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lise/pseuds/Lise). 



> So I wasn't going to write "Monstrosity" at all. And then I wasn't going to post it. And then I definitely wasn't going to write a follow-up. You see the state of my convictions when it comes to fanfiction at this point. And I have only myself to blame, goddammit. 
> 
> At some point, I decided I wanted Clint to remember Everything, and this was what came out of it. With much gratitude to my lovely beta, [zaataronpita](http://zaataronpita.tumblr.com), who never looks at me funny when I send her fic where I fuck with her favorite characters. Thanks for that. 
> 
> To reiterate the warnings: past rape (referenced in memories), some fairly graphic violence, generally atmospherically creepy, extremely fucked up relationship between Loki and Clint. What else is new?
> 
> For those of you waiting on Life in Reverse - it's coming! I swear. I just don't want to half ass it and it took me a bit to figure out how to sort out some plot issues. But that'll be here. Soon. (Really.)

Something was wrong with his memories. 

It took him some time to notice it, but he did notice. A slight disconnect, maybe. A strange fogginess. Something that didn’t quite…mesh. He noticed it mostly when it was quiet and he was alone with just his thoughts, and there it was. Just the one thing. The one incident. Getting grabbed by those guys and…

He almost told Natasha, sometimes, _I think there’s something wrong with my head._ He knew how she would react, though, and he didn’t want to know that it might be true. Didn’t want her reaction to confirm his worst fears. If there was something wrong – _if_ – then he’d work it out on his own. Natasha might hide her worry well, but she worried enough on his account. He wouldn’t give her more reasons for concern. He’d done his best to show her that he was moving on, getting better, getting over It. 

He wasn’t sure that was really true. He wasn’t sure there was an _over_ for something like that. Wasn’t sure there wouldn’t always be a little tiny piece of Loki in his head, like a sliver healed into the skin. But that was his thought, and he didn’t share it with anyone else.

On a surface level, his memories matched up with the reports submitted by the recon team, when he read them over, just in case. The identity of the group that had grabbed him was still unknown. He’d been taken blindfolded to a location where they attempted to torture information out of him. He’d escaped, to be rescued by SHIELD two hours later. Nothing sounded horribly out of place. But there was something…

Something vague, slightly unclear, like he couldn’t quite recall the details when he was looking for them and when he wasn’t they just went away. Like how he had escaped – he could remember doing it, but not how. That he’d been relatively unscathed…maybe that was just luck, but…

Clint prodded at it, but it yielded nothing. He held the strangeness at the back of his mind and told himself it probably had to do with them hitting him in the head a little too hard. Not a big deal. 

There was no one in his head but him, not anymore.

* * *

_“We’ve got a live one.”_

Tony’s voice was grim over the communicator. Clint stiffened, glancing around at the carnage they were surrounded by. Silent as the grave. Whatever had gone through here, it hadn’t left much but smears all over the walls and a few more complete bodies that looked like they’d been turned inside out. It smelled like a slaughterhouse, only worse. Blood Clint could deal with. Throw in the rest and…his stomach wasn’t going to betray him, but it was definitely not pleased. Clint didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be anywhere but here. 

“We do?” he asked, not bothering to hide the incredulity in his voice. 

_“Uh huh. Just one. I think you guys had better hear this.”_

This had been, until about twenty minutes ago, a fairly usual business office just outside of Chicago. It wasn’t anymore. The building was still standing, but every window in it was shattered, and other than a few frightened lower level employees who seemed unable to speak, every person inside was dead. Clint’s skin was already crawling, and the tone in Tony’s voice just made it worse. 

He made his way through the silent corridors, though, until he found the others already gathered. Steve was crouched by a desk, speaking lowly. 

“It’s okay,” he was saying. “You can come out…”

“What’s going on?” Clint asked. “Who is…” He stepped up to the desk and peered under it. He had a brief glimpse of the businessman huddled underneath, smelling strongly of piss and covered in blood, before the man dove flat on his face and started speaking rapidly in something that definitely wasn’t English, his voice a pleading whine. 

“What the hell language is that?” Clint asked, taking a step back, fingers crawling up his spine. 

“No idea,” Tony said, deadpan. “JARVIS can’t identify it as any known human language. Or any known alien language. As far as I can tell, it’s complete gibberish, and he can’t speak anything else.” Tony looked a little pale as his face mask flipped up. “Which, as Anderson Tarsfeld, former bioengineer turned corporate executive, he really should be able to.” 

There was something nudging at the back of Clint’s mind, but when he reached for it, it vanished. “So what happened here,” he muttered, mostly rhetorically. 

“Funny thing,” Natasha said, her voice painfully dry. “Every computer in the building’s fried, except for the one in his office. Which is conveniently open to a hidden folder containing what looks like evidence for just about anything we’d want to charge Mr. Tarsfeld with.” She gave the desk a long look. “Looks like this place’s been doing nothing savory for a while now. Everything from human trafficking on down. And apparently this is how someone lets us know.”

Clint shook his head a little. “Seems a little like overkill,” he said. Steve appeared to give up on talking Anderson out of hiding, and stood up. He looked somewhere between angry and sick. 

Tarsfeld’s hand shot out, and grabbed Clint’s pant leg. Clint jerked, reaching for his knife, but it wasn’t an act of aggression. “Please,” the man said, the words alarmingly clear after the string of nonsense. “Help me. I’m sorry. He-” and then he cut off, like he’d been choked, and curled into himself, shivering. Clint pulled away with a vague feeling of disgust. 

“Don’t apologize to me,” he said, harshly. “Who’s ‘he?’”

Apparently Tarsfeld’s ability to speak was exhausted, however, for he sunk down under the desk and trembled, mumbling nonsense to himself.

* * *

Of course Loki’s name occurred to them. They would have to have been stupid not to think of it. Thor shook his head at once, however. “It’s not like him,” he said, staunchly. 

“I hope you won’t mind me saying that from you, that’s not necessarily comforting,” Tony said, and Thor’s frown deepened. 

“I do not mean he is incapable of such violence, only that this sort seems unlikely to stem from him. It is not his…” Thor seemed to be struggling for the right word. “Style.” 

“That’s true,” Natasha agreed. “It’s both too blunt force and too targeted. It doesn’t make sense. No, I think we’re looking at something else here.” He suspected she was keeping half an eye on him, gauging his reactions… Clint pretended not to notice, and concentrated harder on not twitching. He was past that by now. Better than that. 

Yeah, that wasn’t a lie. 

Bruce sat back and made a face. “He’s been quiet for a while. Maybe this is the start of something new?” 

“Good point. It’s been almost three months, it’s making me nervous.” They all looked at Thor. Thor looked troubled, and shook his head. 

“I have heard no word from Asgard. Prior to this silence, Heimdall glimpsed Loki briefly, but he was swiftly hidden again.” Thor’s face was impassive, but Clint could catch the worry in his eyes. He wished he could feel more sympathetically towards it. “I stand by my initial statement. I do not think Loki behind this attack.” 

Something prickled down Clint’s spine, and he frowned, a little. “’This silence,’ you said. How long, exactly, has it been?” 

Thor gave him an odd look. “Three months, perhaps?”

“Closer to two and a half or three?” 

“I suppose…two and a half.” Thor was giving Clint an odd look, and now so were the rest of them. “Why?” 

Clint opened his mouth, and then shrugged. “No reason. I thought I might have something, but it’s gone now.” Natasha was looking at him, but Clint avoided her gaze. She’d see too much he didn’t want her two. _Two and a half months._ The time worked out to just before Clint’s kidnapping. Just before his memories went weird. 

_It’s nothing,_ he told himself, but the thought settled into his stomach in an indigestible lump and sat there like it intended to stay for a while.

* * *

He had these dreams, sometimes; beautiful, sweet dreams right up until he woke up with a feeling of panic fluttering in his chest (and yearning, just underneath). Those were the dreams where Loki took him back, or sometimes just spoke simple praise, _you did well._ He remembered the feeling he’d had when he’d gotten that sort of praise, the way his heart swelled and all he wanted was to hear more of it, again, to know that he’d pleased.

Early on, most of the dreams had been nasty ones, dark and awful where he’d woken up to Natasha lying dead at his feet or similar, where Loki had dragged him struggling back into his thrall and Clint had felt his mind subsumed, his desires pushed out, everything that was _him_ sinking into the wave of heavy, oppressive _peace._

He didn’t have those so much anymore. Now it was the quieter kind, the kind where he woke up feeling joy twisting his heart and hated that poison more than the painful kind, because it felt like it could seep into him even easier. The ones where Loki just talked and it was perfectly reasonable and little by little all his objections slid into insignificance.

Those were worse. 

Loki sidled into his dreams the night after the Chicago incident, a slight smile on his lips as he stepped forward and cupped Clint’s face, and Clint leaned into it because it felt good, soothed a craving he’d almost been unaware of. 

“Hawkling,” he murmured, and that name hummed through his bones, affectionate and familiar. “Why do you fret so much? Let it go.” His thumbs ran over Clint’s cheekbones, and he let his eyes close. “I shall look after you.” 

He went limp with relief, and woke up shuddering, chest aching, and for a moment wanted to fall back into the dream. He pushed himself up, though, shoved that down. He’d never had an addiction before. He wondered sometimes, if he could talk to anyone about this, if anyone else would call it that. 

_I know who I am,_ he told himself, over and over again. _I know who I am, and it’s just me._

* * *

Natasha cornered him in his room. “How are you?” she asked, with a kind of aggression to the question that made it more than a polite inquiry. Clint just looked at her. “You’re twitchy,” she said, by way of explanation. “And tense. I notice.”

That was easy enough to answer. “Can you blame me if I still don’t really like spending too much time thinking about Thor’s crazy kid brother? It’s not really my favorite subject.” 

She eyed him, but appeared to accept that, settling back on her heels from being poised to pounce. “Hmm. And you’re dealing fine with the rest?” 

“It’s not my first time on the roller coaster, Tasha,” Clint said. He wanted, for a moment, to just tell her, _there’s something going on with me and I don’t know what it is, and I’m starting to think it might have something to do with Him,_ but the thought passed quickly. There was nothing there, just leftover paranoia. “I’m doing fine.” 

She held up her hands. “Got it, got it. I’m out on mission tonight – should I come by after?”

“What do you think,” Clint said, with his lecherous grin. She flipped him off, but laughing, and then slipped away. 

He meant to stay awake and wait for her, but crashed on the couch midway through an episode of CSI reruns. He dreamed someone was rutting against him, making low and desperate sounds into his shoulder. Clint could feel himself responding, but then his hips ground against his partner’s and he felt another man’s dick hot and hard against his skin, and woke up in surprise, still turned on and half hard himself.

He took a few breaths and ran his hands down his face as he sat up, disoriented. He felt strangely cold and disquiet, his stomach uneasy, and he remembered again the first few nights after the battle, when he’d been too wired to sleep because sleeping felt too much like he might just slide back into that quiet blue peace where the world was perfectly clear. A moment later he wondered why he’d thought of it, though. 

His tongue felt thick and his mouth tasted like ass, so he got up and had a few swallows of water, swished out his mouth and spat into the sink. 

_Don’t make anything of a dream,_ he reminded himself, sitting back down and turning on the TV to keep himself away. _It’s just that. If you let this drive you crazy…_

He stayed up until Natasha returned, wound up enough that they indulged in several rounds of spectacular sex that was definitely going to leave Clint sore in the morning. 

He didn’t dream again.

* * *

They got nowhere on the Tarsfeld case, a situation only made more impossible by the fact that Tarsfeld managed to choke himself by swallowing his own tongue in SHIELD custody. Steve proposed that they were looking at a new player, which made everybody grumpy. Tony proposed that they drop the investigation, since the guy was, quote, ‘a piece of shit anyway.’ 

Clint was the only one who took him up on the proposal, at least aloud.

The foggy place in his brain stayed foggy. 

It was around the four month mark that they ran into Loki, completely by accident. They’d found a defunct AIM operations base that had apparently been funded by Tarsfeld and were cleaning it out, hoping to find a clue to where they’d gone. In the middle of ransacking the archives, Loki appeared in the middle of the room. 

He looked equally surprised to see them as they were to see him. In the moment of silence before all hell broke loose, Clint thought he saw Loki’s eyes skate in his direction and then jerk away without even a slight smirk, and he shivered involuntarily. 

Of course, then it was all threats and posturing and a fight that was over quickly as Loki simply vanished again the same way he’d come, but Clint couldn’t help but think that something hadn’t been right. Not just in why Loki was here at all, but that he hadn’t looked great. Slightly too thin, maybe. Sick. 

So much the better, Clint thought viciously. 

“What the hell was that,” Tony asked, when Loki was gone. The question was nominally addressed to Thor, but Thor seemed lost in thought, his brow furrowed, and Clint wondered if he’d noticed the same strangeness. 

There was something nagging at the back of Clint’s brain, like vital information he couldn’t quite recall. Something he’d been told for a mission, maybe, once, and wanted to call back now, but if it had been right there a moment ago now it was gone.

He dreamed his mystery man, the same one as before (he was sure of that), but this time kneeling. He was looking down at a sleek, dark head, his mouth a warm seal around Clint’s dick. His heart was jumping in his ribs and it felt good, he could feel every detail, every little flicker of tongue and tug of suction-

And even as he started to feel himself sliding toward orgasm, it was like his eyes cleared. 

Loki, he thought. It was Loki. 

He woke up soundlessly and shuddering, any sound he might have wanted to make strangled in his throat. His chest felt tight. _It’s just a dream,_ he told himself. _There’s nothing wrong with you._

That, obviously, wasn’t true.

* * *

The dream kept coming back. It was always Loki, Loki sucking him off, Loki pressed against him with his back to the wall, Loki naked and panting, a desperate please on his lips and _what the hell was wrong with him._

He’d had more than his share of dreams about Loki, after – afterwards, but not like this. Some of them flavored uncomfortable in that direction, but not – not like _this._

_Please,_ Loki said, near his ear, and sounded almost like he was going to _cry,_ vibrating minutely, and Clint woke up with his stomach rolling, his body confused and his mind going in dizzy circles. _You’re sick,_ he thought, staring at himself in the mirror. _You’re really, really fucking sick._

Natasha noticed that he was sleeping less. 

“Something up?” she asked, eying him from where she was perched on one of his chairs. 

“Why would you say that?” Clint said, more to his frying pan than anything. He could practically still feel…everything. Stupid fucking… “Things’re fine.” 

“You’ve got circles around your eyes like full moons, Clint. If you’re not sleeping again…”

“I’m sleeping,” Clint said quickly, and then added, to be honest, “just not great. But it’s not because – I’m fine. It’s probably just the heat.” 

_Or maybe it’s the fact that your id really wants to fuck the would be conqueror of Earth. Apparently._ Clint’s stomach rolled. 

It’s not that weird, he told himself. So you’re having fucked up sex dreams about the guy who messed with your head. There’s no obvious symbolism there. It’ll pass. Just give it a little time and stop obsessing about it. 

Easier said than done.

* * *

They fought some kind of telepath. A guy who’d done something to himself and wound up as some kind of lizard-thing with psychic powers. Sometimes Clint was really glad he was just regular flavor normal and not really chasing after being anything else. 

Of course, it meant that all the nasties went straight for him first. 

Crouched on the edge of his roof as he reached for an arrow, its tongue flickered out, and it paused, seeming startled. “There are secrets in your head,” it hissed, suddenly. “I can taste them. Locked away where you can’t touch them.” 

His muscles froze, fear surging up his throat. _Loki,_ he knew, and maybe it would have seemed paranoid, if it were anyone but him. _It’s him. Of course it’s him, he did something to me-_

“I don’t like secrets,” the thing hissed, and lunged. He hadn’t intended the shot to be lethal. Instinct took over, though, and his bolt went through its throat. 

Steve was furious. In that way only Steve got, of course, where he was just _disappointed_ , but Clint could tell the difference. Natasha watched him through the scolding, eyes slightly narrowed, but she didn’t push him after. Clint could feel his blood pounding in his wrists, behind his eyes. 

_There are secrets in your head._ Something tucked away that wasn’t his. Another little piece of him Loki had stolen and replaced with something else. And what was it hiding? What was it hiding?

He could almost hear Loki laughing in his head. Everything went back to the kidnapping – or whatever it had really been. If he could just figure out what had happened, if he could just remember…

It was no good. When he cast his thoughts back, all of it felt like his. Felt like _real._

God, the next time he saw Loki, Clint was putting a knife through his fucking _spine._ Thor would just have to deal. 

The thought didn’t feel convincing even in his head.

* * *

Clint made some kind of thin excuse and traveled to where he’d been rescued by SHIELD. With a little bit of backtracking and the help of some equipment he’d filched from Tony, it wasn’t too hard to track down the place he’d escaped from. 

Or what was left of it. 

There wasn’t much. The building looked like it had been hit with an extremely localized earthquake. There was a faint smell of rot that suggested it hadn’t come down empty. Clint stared at it, trying to identify the uneasy stirring in his gut. Something had happened here, that much was obvious. He couldn’t remember this being mentioned in the reports, and it _should_ have been. Unless it had happened after, which would make sense – no traces made you harder to track – but something didn’t fit, still. 

_Stop worrying about it._

Clint wouldn’t have thought much of that little nudge at the back of his mind a week ago. Now, though – he stiffened, immediately aware of that quiet urge to just let it go, not notice, move along by. It wasn’t overpowering, was so gentle it might go unnoticed entirely.

If you hadn’t had someone in your head already.

_What is it I’m not supposed to know, here,_ Clint thought savagely, staring at the wreckage. _What is it you’re hiding?_

(Some reasonable part of him knew it might not be Loki, that there were other magic users out there in the world. But he knew already, in his bones, and everything he found just made him a little more sure.)

On instinct, he poked around Tarsfeld’s accounts, looking for something that might tie him to this place, but he came up empty. Clint sat back with a vague feeling of disappointment, though he wasn’t sure why he’d expected something else. 

_Just go to your friends. Just tell them what’s going on. Tell them someone’s fucked with your memories and-_

And what? It could be anything, lurking in his head. Maybe there was a trap there waiting for him to try to free himself for it to spring. A trigger could be anything, and that he knew it might be there wouldn’t make it work any less. Maybe Loki was relying on him going to the others for help, and that was exactly what would bring about the worst. 

Or maybe it was something else. Clint’s stomach rolled, the dream coming back, so excruciatingly clear. The wet interior of Loki’s mouth and the tightness of his throat. But if it was that simple – he didn’t want to be thinking about this, made himself anyway. If it was that simple, why alter his memory? Why not make him remember? 

No, there was something else going on here. 

Clint forced himself not to consider the desperation in that thought.

* * *

Ultimately, Clint only knew one magic user he was willing to even think about having in his head. And even that was an unappealing notion. But he was running out of options. Still, he couldn’t help but fidget. 

“So…how does this work?”

“It is simply a nullifying spell,” Strange said. “It will negate any magic effects placed upon you.” 

“Will it hurt?” Clint asked, feeling stupid for the question even as his entire body clenched. 

“It should not.”

“Should not?” His voice sounded a little too close to shrill, and Clint cleared his throat. “…meaning…” Every moment he stayed here, every muscle tensed in anticipation of someone else cracking into his head and rummaging around – whatever their intentions – the more he wanted to bash Strange over the head and bolt.

He hated that, too. That Loki had left that much of a mark. It felt like giving him power. 

“Depending on what kind of magic it is that has affected you…some spells are easier to lift than others.” Strange examined him, and added, after a moment, “Are you certain you wish to do this? I can see that you are uneasy…”

Clint gritted his teeth. “Yeah, well. I’ll make it work. Go ahead.”

“If you are sure.” 

“I’m sure,” Clint said, a little harshly. “Just do it, okay? I’m never going to like this, but I’d rather know than – the alternative.” He clenched his fists on his legs, bracing himself. Strange scrutinized him a moment longer, but finally nodded. He mumbled his magic mumbo-jumbo, stretched out his hands, and Clint felt a tightness behind his eyes, pressure inside his skull building- 

His ears popped and the feeling faded. For a moment, he registered nothing different. “That’s all?” he said, feeling a little incredulous.

Then it hit him. 

Some goons dragging him into a room only to see Loki sprawled on the floor, a pleasant smile on his lips, vague and slightly distracted. He remembered balking, his whole body seizing up, a wild panic instinct taking hold because he needed to get _out_ of here, right now, he couldn’t do this again. Only when they dragged him to a wall and chained him to it, Loki not moving from where he was, hardly glancing in his direction, did that ebb a little. 

_What’s the game,_ he remembered thinking rapidly, trying to think on his feet, figure out how to get out of this. _What do they think is going to happen here, is he…_ but Loki didn’t look alert, or like he was planning anything. And then one of the men was going over, bending down, and Clint watched Loki arch into his hands. _Please,_ he heard him say, in a voice breathless and almost unrecognizable. _Touch me._

And then…

Clint didn’t even try to make it to the bathroom. He spewed right there on Doctor’s Strange’s floor, and kept trying to retch, long after there was nothing to bring up. 

* * *

Clint didn’t drink often. He tried to avoid it. Leaving Strange’s, though, he found the nearest cheap bar and downed enough shots of hard liquor to numb everything a little bit and render him a little past drunk but not quite senseless. Then he could sit back and try to think.

That answered one question, at least – he recognized some of the goons in his memories. Not Tarsfeld’s, but AIM’s. Given what they already knew about at least portions of AIM being on the guy’s payroll... It was enough of a connection for Clint. Maybe not to make any arrests or convictions, but…apparently he had gotten a little too close. Had been on the verge of making a connection that would produce evidence. Apparently they’d thought they could get him out of the picture. 

Didn’t work out so great for them, he thought, with grim, bleak humor.

But that was – that was the easy part. 

_If you tell anyone, I will kill you,_ Loki had said – after. (After. Clint felt like laughing. After _what,_ not even going to think it?) Apparently that hadn’t been good enough insurance. He hadn’t said anything about altering Clint’s memories – of course – just stepped in and wiped the whole thing away, because fuck it, he was just a lowly mortal, what right did he have to decide what happened with his brain-

He remembered the way Loki’s fingers had felt, light on his face, as he’d asked almost shyly for Clint to kiss him, and had to press his head against the table and breathe deeply so he didn’t waste all his newly consumed alcohol. 

_Fuck fuck fuck._

He felt filthy, disgusting, like he didn’t want to exist in his own skin anymore if he could just figure out a way to crawl out of it. There was no getting away from it. _You fucked Loki._ His breathing sped up. _You had your dick down his throat and you came, you-_

He hadn’t wanted it. He hadn’t wanted any of it, no matter how his body had reacted Clint _knew_ that, if they hadn’t tied him down and locked him to a wall he would have fought his way out. They’d put a gun to his head and made him do it. _It’s not your fault, okay? It’s not your fault._

_But why?_

The question nudged through his drunken haze, agent’s instincts kicking in. _Why…_

Then he remembered the way Loki’s throat had felt constricting around him, and had to stop thinking and just breathe all over again. _Stop it,_ he tried to tell himself. _Stop it._ Everything was so thoroughly fucked. What was he supposed to _do_ with this?

_Look at this straight. Just the facts._

He leaned his head on one hand and squeezed his eyes closed. _Somebody grabbed you. Same someone managed to catch Loki and hold him long enough to drug him with something nastily potent. And then-_ Clint’s gorge rose, despite his attempt to be clinical, and he took a few moments, trying to calm himself. _And then a gang of mooks watched Loki suck your dick. Because…_ why? Was it to humiliate Loki? Hammer at Clint? Something else? Had they hoped Loki would kill Clint, after – had they _really_ thought they could control that?

_You should have left this alone,_ murmured a voice at the back of his mind, and Clint wanted to hate that idea more than he did. He’d been wrong. Knowing was worse. 

His head was starting to spin, but at least this time it was just because of the alcohol. He staggered out of the bar and went home, fell into bed. 

He dreamed about Loki blowing him, and the first thing he did when he woke up was vomit all over again, his head spinning.

* * *

He pled sickness and stayed in his apartment rather than the Tower, slinking out when no one was looking. He didn’t want to see anyone, not until he figured out what the hell he was going to do about this shit. Clint didn’t know what they would do and didn’t want to know, not when _he_ didn’t know what he was going to do or what to think about what had happened and worst of all didn’t want them to look at him like he was some kind of broken _thing_ cause he’d been _raped._

_Aren’t you, though?_ There was a sardonic voice in the back of his head that Clint smothered, ruthlessly. 

He’d thought knowing what had happened, filling in the hole in his memories, would solve his problems and make everything fit together right. But no, of course it didn’t work like that. If anything, it was _worse_ now, and all he had was more questions. 

Clint sat in his living room and tried to sort through his thoughts.

Loki had tried to stop. 

He remembered that, suddenly. He’d said the word, _stop,_ slipped out of him, and Loki had frozen perfectly still and then tried to pull away, right up until they put the gun to Clint’s head and made him tell Loki to finish. Like that, drugged beyond all reason, he’d actually…

_Why does it matter? You’re going to give him credit for_ that? _He raped you._

No, countered another voice, smaller. You raped him. Or helped them do it. 

His stomach churned. Both of them, he thought, neither of them had wanted - would have ever… He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe deeply. What the hell was he supposed to do? He didn’t know of any handbooks for this, _how to deal with having mutually non-consensual sex with the guy who played with your brain like silly putty and then made you forget about it, in nine easy steps._ Where could he go from here?

Clint knew, though. There was one person who might have answers. And he was going to have to get them somehow. It was just that it was the last thing he wanted.

* * *

How did you summon a self-proclaimed god who didn’t want to be found, considered you little more than a nuisance, and who was probably hellbent on some kind of plan of world domination, with minimal risk of harm to yourself? 

It was always the questions that the philosophers failed to address that turned out being the important ones. 

He kept waking up with his head full of sweat and overheated skin against his, the little sounds of desperation, the feeling of Loki gagging around him, disgusted, aroused, and furious with himself. He felt fixated, wondered briefly if Loki had set all of this up, if he was being played even now-

It would have been comforting to believe that. If Loki was the perpetrator, that removed complications, removed any pointless guilt that Clint was carrying around. Left him one less thing to deal with. 

He didn’t believe it, though. And it was still – little things kept flashing into his mind with horrifying vividity. The way Loki had looked at his face as the men pushed their bodies together, recognition dawning in glazed eyes, followed by – affection. A smile. Warmth, like Loki was genuinely happy to see him, and the way his fingers had brushed Clint’s face. _Please…kiss me?_

His stomach twisted in knots. He remembered – things he didn’t want to remember, moments or feelings from when he’d been – not himself. Clint didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think about the fact that Tarsfeld had apologized to him, specifically. That Loki had killed everyone in the building, and everyone in Tarsfeld’s business, but left Clint alive. Didn’t want to think too closely through the implications, because facing Loki was going to be hard enough as it was.

And he needed to talk to him, somehow. Without getting himself killed. 

Thor would know how to contact Loki, but there was no way to ask him without rousing suspicion. So he was going to have to figure out something else. 

And that meant he was going to have to dig deep.

* * *

Clint had done a number of fairly stupid things in his colorful and checkered past, but this, he thought, probably ranked near the top. He stared at the moldy old book he’d tracked down, stomach churning anxiously. _You can still back down,_ he reminded himself. _Keep dealing with this on your own._

That wasn’t quite true, though. There was only so much he felt capable of doing on his own. For the rest…facing Loki would make it so it wasn’t all in his head. Would make it real, at least, and he could go from there. 

Still, though. That didn’t make this any less of a stupid, hare-brained plan. And probably not going to work, either. 

He looked down at his…setup. He didn’t want to call it an altar, for any number of a long list of reasons, but that was what it was, more or less. A haphazard, shitty altar, but nonetheless. If this worked, he figured an appeal to vanity was as good a way to get out of this unscathed as anything. 

That and the fact that he’d booby-trapped his own apartment and stashed a veritable armory on his person. He knew it wasn’t much – like going up against a giant with a few rocks and a slingshot – but hey, it’d worked for David, and all he’d really need was to buy a little time. 

Clint took a deep breath and held out his hand over the bowl of hastily assembled herbs, gritted his teeth, and cut a shallow line carefully into his palm. He didn’t like messing with his hands, but he figured it was a symbolic thing, and if he wanted this to work (he wasn’t sure he wanted this to work), he needed to go the whole way. He clenched his hand into a fist to speed up the blood flow until a few drops _plinked_ into the bowl, and then, feeling profoundly stupid, opened his mouth.

“Um,” he began, and then made a face. “—Loki. I…summon you. Please.” He damn well hoped that was polite enough. “So…” He trailed off, and waited, tense and awkward, but nothing happened. Maybe he should have tried figuring out how to pronounce the Old Norse.

A minute stretched by. Two. His hand was starting to ache, and Clint pulled it back and pressed it to his shirt to stop the bleeding. 

“Well, fuck,” Clint said to his empty apartment after ten minutes. “That was productive.”

He wouldn’t admit to being maybe just a little relieved. He’d tried that. Hadn’t worked. Too bad. C’est la vie. 

Clint breathed out a little sigh, and set his shoulders. He’d figure out another way to deal with this.

* * *

Clint got up from his first dreamless sleep in two weeks, brushed his teeth, and wandered out to get some coffee wearing only his sweats.

Loki was standing in his living room. 

For a moment, Clint just blinked, the sight so completely unexpected that it took him a moment to react. It hadn’t _worked._ And yet apparently… 

Well, great.

He was in full armor, lacking only the helmet, and his face was a perfect blank. “Well,” he said, voice flat. “This is unexpected.” Clint wondered if he was imagining the way Loki held himself, guarded and tense in a way that was new, different from his usual haughty arrogance. 

Clint planted his feet. “We need to talk,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. Loki just looked at him for several long moments, his gaze dispassionate. Looking at him like this, the image in his head of Loki naked and wanton felt even more jarringly wrong than it already had. Clint felt filthy, sick, twisted between loathing and guilt. 

“Do we.” 

“Yeah.” Clint swallowed. Fear pulsed in his chest and he shoved it down, and made himself speak the words that might get him killed. “I remember.”

Loki’s expression didn’t so much as twitch. “That’s suitably ambiguous. Remember something in particular, I assume.” 

“Whatever you did to fuck with my memories, it didn’t stick.”

Looking closely, he could just see Loki tense, the slightest bit. “I’m afraid I’m hardly interested in lingering to listen to you babble, hawkling.” The name was deliberate, Clint knew, but he still felt himself twitch at it. “Do not presume-”

“Tarsfeld,” Clint broke in. “Where did he come in? What did he want with you? I can’t put it together. The rest I’ve got, but that…”

Loki stared at him, eyes half lidded. “I have no notion what it is you think I know. If this is some incident on Midgard for which you think me responsible…”

“He tried to apologize to me,” Clint pushed on. “I didn’t know what for at the time. It was his guys, wasn’t it? That grabbed me and that-“ The lack of expression on Loki’s face made him cut off. Had Loki made himself forget? No, he knew that wasn’t right. It just didn’t seem to touch him. Didn’t seem to _matter_. Anger boiled up in Clint that after everything he’d been feeling, of course, of _course_ Loki would hardly even _notice,_ why had he bothered with guilt at all, and it was that anger that came out in his next harsh words, “-that drugged you into a state of _needy desperation_ and made you suck me off.”

He didn’t take his eyes off Loki’s face for a moment, and so he saw the shift, the transformation from one moment to the next. 

He remembered the look on Loki’s face, when the ground had started to crack open and Clint had yelled his name three times to catch his attention, and when he turned – for the first time in many, many years, Clint had thought he might piss himself. The sheer blank _rage_ in that face. Eyes empty of all thought, of everything but sheer emotion, nothing there to reason with or speak to. For the first time he could understand why people might have thought of him as a god. It wasn’t _human,_ that expression, but something else, like seeing a wild animal or a storm that was vaguely person-shaped. 

For a moment, that was the look on Loki’s face, and Clint was suddenly aware of how little he could do if Loki’s temper tipped far enough to kill him. He thought of the bodies at Tarsfeld’s firm that had been turned inside out and wondered vividly how much they’d felt of it. His stomach rolled, but he held his ground. 

A moment later it was gone, his eyes perfectly flat. “I suppose I might have expected you to recall,” he said, voice almost a monotone. “That I owned you once before would make a second casting less successful.” Clint felt his body go rigid. 

“I asked you a question,” he said, not quite through his teeth. Loki regarded him. 

“That you summoned me – an interesting choice, by the by, no one has used that particular method in quite a while – does not mean you command me, I’m afraid.” His voice was cool, distant, but Clint thought he could hear a note of something else in it. “Tarsfeld is dead, having paid the price for meddling with me. That is all you need know.” 

Clint felt his lips peel back from his teeth. “No. That _isn’t_ all. I have a right to-”

“Have a right to what?” Loki sneered at him, the expression violent and ugly. “Are you expecting me to _apologize_ to you? I spent a _week_ scouring your filth from my body. Or do you think that I _enjoyed_ our little _dalliance?_ ”

“No,” Clint said, still through his teeth. His stomach was rolling and he felt so tense he might snap like a rubber band. “I don’t think you did. I know I didn’t. That still doesn’t give you license to _erase it from my fucking mind._ ” His voice snapped and broke on the last words, and he took a step forward. To his surprise, Loki took a step back, slight, and looked furious the moment he took it, but nonetheless…

Clint remembered the way Loki hadn’t so much as glanced at him during their last encounter, and the thought slid into his mind that if Loki was the face in his nightmares, maybe he was in Loki’s. _Good,_ he told himself, but the thought made him feel sick. 

Loki tossed his head, arrogance regained. “I have every license to do what I like.”

“No,” Clint said flatly. “You don’t. And if it didn’t stick this time, it won’t stick if you try it again. And next time you’ll be wishing I’d killed you.” 

Loki’s shoulders twitched, and he scoffed, but it sounded slightly forced. “Are you really threatening me?” 

“I’ve got pretty good backup, if you forgot.” 

Loki’s teeth bared, but he didn’t move. “I suppose if it becomes a problem I’ll simply have to kill you outright,” he said, and Clint just managed to swallow the _you can try._ This wasn’t…what had he thought would happen? What had he thought he would _get?_ This had been a stupid idea. 

Well, he was going to have to get through it now. 

“Why didn’t you kill me?” Clint asked, the question slipping out before he could stop it. Loki coughed a harsh sounding laugh. 

“I considered it. But you were a pawn used against me. I was – I am – far more interested in the hands moving the pieces.” _Too insignificant to kill._ That might sting, but it made sense. 

“And that’s Tarsfeld.” 

Loki’s lips peeled back from his teeth for a moment before his expression smoothed, too deliberately. “It _was._ ” The emphasis on the tense was heavy with grim satisfaction. “One of them. He has paid for his part. The others know I am hunting them, but I will let them run a little longer.” His voice was flat, almost savage. _Too blunt force,_ Natasha had described the attack on Tarsfeld, and of course it had been. The first slam of rage, brutal and fast, slaking bloodlust. Now it was colder. 

Whatever his pretense, no, Loki had not taken this well. 

It wasn’t pity he felt, exactly. Just kind of a twisting discomfort. 

Clint was sure of one thing, though. “You’re missing one,” he said, coolly. Loki’s eyes flicked to him, sharp and hard, but they were human again, mostly. The wildness in his eyes had faded to the back. 

“Beg pardon?”

“You’ve been looking for the guy who made the – whatever it was, the drug,” Clint said, quietly. Loki stared at him, spine rigid. Clint wondered if he would ever look at him and see him as anything like he had, now, pleading and desperate, stripped naked and defenseless. “Right?” 

“My business is my own.” Loki’s voice was flat again, emotionless. Clint could see his shoulders tremble briefly, though. 

“If you were,” Clint said, and then took a breath through his nose, but there was something hollow about the Loki in front of him, and Clint thought of Thor, if they did that to Thor…that was an excuse, though. It was wrong, of course it was wrong, but when there was a weapon to hand, you used it, and Clint had an ugliness inside him that they’d unleashed. “If you were…his name’s Torvald Asbjørnsen. Swedish guy, lives in Sioux Falls.” Loki glanced to him, and his eyes flickered with something Clint couldn’t identify. Clint shrugged. “I told them,” he said, keeping his voice flat, “that they’d wish they’d let me kill them when you caught up.”

“What would your friends think,” Loki said, voice laden with sarcasm. 

“They don’t have to know.” Clint would have killed the guy himself. He’d thought about doing it. Ultimately, though… Loki was looking at him through pale eyes, once more emotionless, and Clint stayed still and waited. 

“In the old days,” he said, finally, “every so often, mortals would give blood offerings for favor of the gods. For the wisdom of Odin or the strength of Thor. Animals, mostly, but sometimes…not.” Loki’s smile was grim. “Your offering pleases, Clint Barton.” 

Clint felt a faint shiver down his spine. “I’m not doing it for you,” he said, harshly, even as his heart answered the praise with an eager little jump. 

“I never thought you were.” Loki considered him, the death’s head grin fading. “Do you want to keep your memories? I meant it as a courtesy.” 

“No,” Clint said vehemently. “You won’t touch my head again. _Ever_. Did I not make that clear? I don’t care what you think…they’re my memories. And I’ve taken worse.” 

Silence, for a moment, and then Loki inclined his head. “Very well. If you will excuse me, then…it seems there is something I must see to.” The corner of his mouth twitched, mirthlessly. “I will keep you in my favor.” 

“Don’t,” Clint said, “I’d like that better.” 

“It’s not about what you would like better,” Loki said, turning. “You bled to summon me. That is ritual, and there is power in ritual. You are bound to me now still more than you were, as I am bound to you.” The corners of Loki’s mouth tilted up. “I protect my own, Barton. You should be grateful.”

He was gone before Clint could reply.

* * *

There was a news item about the gruesome murder of a Mr. Asbjørnsen in North Dakota the next morning. Clint went and found the file, already earmarked for checking by SHIELD experts, and flipped through it. It looked like Loki had taken his time. Clint wondered if he ought to feel guilty, and didn’t quite manage to be disturbed that he didn’t, really. 

The police were puzzled by a message written in runes on the wall, painted in blood. The runes were modified Old Norse, a version experts were unfamiliar with and couldn’t quite translate. Clint tried to remember where he’d seen the last few characters before, and sat bolt upright when he remembered. 

_Loki’s fingers traced a design on the inside of his arm, three characters, one after the other. Clint watched his fingers sketch the lines, fascinated, and asked a rare question._

_“What does it mean?” Loki had smiled, very faintly._

MINE, said the blood on the wall, and Clint’s stomach lurched and twisted into knots.


End file.
